Archangel Chronicles: Stuck In The Middle
by VibeQuake
Summary: "Don't you see?" Perry addressed his friends. "Everything that's happened: Kirk and Kane against Kegan's robots, Rodney's various rays. It's all been a sign of things to come. A battle between ARCHANGEL and LOVEMUFFIN is going to begin very shortly and OWCA is well and truly stuck in the middle of it. If we don't do something, we risk getting crushed." Sequel to Everybody Hurts
1. Battling

**This story takes place four years after the events of Everybody Hurts.**

…

Perry ran and slid along the floor as low as he could, the laser beam passing just over his head. He rolled to his feet, generated a proton disk, and threw it at the robot that the laser had just come from, making it explode. Perry leapt up, caught the ring, and threw it again, this time at the robot that was about to shoot Pinky the Chihuahua in the back.

On the other side of the room, Pansy slid under a robot's legs and used her electricity sticks to short the robot out. Then she kicked it in the back as hard as she could, sending it flying into another robot. Terry then appeared out of nowhere and slammed the second robot in the head, shorting that one out.

Across from them, Tallulah and Pinky were working together to take out a ring of robots around them. Tallulah tucked into her shell, which Pinky kicked hard, sending the shell spinning into several robots and knocking them down.

The metal doors in the large room suddenly and noisily slid open, revealing a giant robot that looked just like an inflated version of the robots the agents were fighting.

Perry lowered into a fighting stance, his proton ring held tightly in his paw. Tallulah and Terry went back to back and held up their fists. Pansy held her electricity sticks out towards the robot as if she was about to cast a spell with them. Pinky held up his own fists.

Then the robot unveiled laser vision.

All the agents scattered in different directions as the blast zapped the floor where Perry had just been. Everyone looked towards the teal platypus for orders. "Pansy, go for its eyes with your sticks," Perry ordered. "Tallulah, Terry, you two keep it distracted. Pinky-."

Perry ducked as a stream of fire flowed from the robot's metallic mouth. "-do something about that," Perry finished. "I'm going to find that ray. If you need help, just yell my name."

His team immediately put his orders into actions. Perry marvelled at the speed with which they acted, but he had no time to dwell on it. Slipping the proton disk back into his metal wrist brace, he ran towards the robot and forward-rolled through its legs as it made a clumsy attempt to squish him with its foot. He made it to the large bay doors, which apparently showed no signs of closing, and ran through them.

He found himself in the dark but he was able to see with the torch that every OWCA fedora was equipped with. He shone the light in front of him so that he was able to see where he was going. When he got into a large, lit, circular room with metal walls, he switched the light off and stared in amazement. Right in front of him was the biggest ray he had ever seen, pointing upwards. It looked like Doofenshmirtz's old disintegrate-inator but about ten times as big. He had no doubt that this could do some serious damage, whatever it was supposed to do. He stood there for a moment longer, making sure the camera in his hat was capturing this ray.

Being as quiet as he could, Perry leapt onto the body of the ray and searched for a way to disarm it. To his utter surprise, he found a button marked **SELF-DESTRUCT.** He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Apparently Doofenshmirtz had had a design input. He didn't understand why Rodney even _let_ Perry's former nemesis into LOVEMUFFIN in the first place, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pressed the self-destruct button. After backwards-somersaulting off the device, he quickly ran for the doors as the ray shook and shuddered, before finally exploding. What seemed odd to him was that nothing was guarding the ray. Surely Rodney would post _someone_ or _something_ to protect his very important –inator.

When he got back to his friends, he found a chaotic scene: Pansy was on top of the robot's head, hitting the thing over and over again with her sticks; Tallulah was dangling by her foot in the robot's hand; Terry was clutching hold of his twin sister's hands, also dangling in the air, but obviously trying to pull the yellow turtle down; and Pinky was absently pulling random bits of cable and circuits out of the robot's damaged chest. Perry stood still, watching the robot flail about with a damaged head and chest, and hoped that the video camera in his hat was recording this. He was _definitely_ going to be showing this to his friends and his mate after the mission was over.

After a minute more, Perry re-generated his proton ring and threw it straight at the robot's damaged chest. Pinky dived off the robot and rolled as the ring hit the robot's chest. The robot began shuddering and sparking in much the same way that the ray did, and Perry knew it was going to explode. "Get down!" he yelled, throwing himself to the floor.

Tallulah managed to wrench herself out of the robot's grasp, sending her and her twin brother falling to the floor, where they raced into the corner furthest from the robot. Pansy pushed off from the robot's head, landed as gracefully as a cat, and followed the twin turtles into the corner. The robot spotted them and began walking shudderingly and mechanically towards them. They pressed themselves against the corner in fear, before something began beeping in the robot's head.

Perry had just enough time to cover his head before the robot exploded with an extremely loud noise. Perry curled up in a ball to protect himself from the metal parts that spread everywhere.

After everything had settled down, Perry slowly got to his feet and surveyed the scene. Terry, Tallulah, and Pansy were still huddled in the corner but they were starting to get up; and Pinky had just staggered to his feet.

"Everybody okay?" Perry called.

He got a chorus of yeses and murmurs of agreement as an answer. Panting, Pinky staggered over to the robot's head and gave it a kick. "Not so tough now, are you?"

"Why exactly were you pulling things out of the robot's chest?" Perry asked.

Pinky shrugged. "It was fun."

Perry gave him a scared look. "Man, I honestly think you have some kind of split personality disorder. When you're in the office, you're completely normal. Put a robot in front of you and you become calmly psychotic."

Pinky grinned and innocently held up two fistfuls of cable. Perry shook his head. "It's a bit worrying."

"Let's get back to HQ before any of LOVEMUFFIN realise we're here," Pansy said.

As he and his team began running for the exit, Perry frowned in thought. _That's true,_ he thought. _None of LOVEMUFFIN have realised we're here…we made a very big racket but nobody's come to see what's happening, not even Rodney._

 _I have a bad feeling about this…_

…

 **This may seem like a random mission to start off the story but it's vitally important so please remember it 0:)**


	2. After The Mission

When Perry and his team got back to Mission Prep, they put all the gear they had used back in their boxes. Most agents used weapons or gear that was available for everybody to use, but Perry's metal wrist braces and Pansy's energy batons had been created specifically for them to use by Kane, who was not just the mission controller; he was an engineer too. He was waiting for them as they came through the door from Mission Prep.

"How did it go?" he asked. "Was the gear okay?"

"The gear was more than okay," grinned Pansy, flexing her wrists as if she still had the batons in her hands. "It was great."

"Oh, good," Kane said in relief. He turned to Perry. "And your proton ring?"

"It flew very well," Perry said truthfully, not entirely sure what he was supposed to say about it.

Luckily for him, Kane moved on. "Your family's waiting in your office, Agent P. All five of you need to write up a mission report and send it to me ASAP. Remember, only write about what you did, not anyone else, unless it's like **_so-and-so did this which meant I was able to do that._** Okay?"

"Okay," everybody chorused.

Kane then gave a thumbs up and walked away. Perry went straight to his office and found his teal-coloured mate sitting in his chair. "Hi Portia," he said, smiling.

Portia stood up and matched Perry's smile. "How was the mission?" she asked, as Perry moved further into the office and hugged her.

Before Perry could reply, a bundle of fur jumped onto Perry's back. "Daddy, I won my kickball game today!"

"Oh, did you?" Perry twisted his head round and managed to see the small turquoise platypus on his back. "Did you make the winning kick?"

"She actually did," Portia said, smiling proudly.

"Mommy, _I'm_ telling the story!" complained the two-year-old platypus.

"Okay, Carly, tell me about your kickball game." Perry pried the small platypus off his back and held her in his arms.

"Jason kicked the ball and got two points, then it was my turn and I didn't get any points, and then-."

"He doesn't need every single detail," grinned Portia. "Who scored runs?"

"Abby scored a run!" Carly offered. "But she was on the opposite team."

"Who scored the runs on _your_ team?" Perry asked.

"Jason scored most of them," admitted Carly. "But when there was ten seconds to go and we were in a tie, I scored a run and won the game for my team!"

Perry swung his daughter round, causing her to squeal in delight. "That's my girl," he smiled.

"Are you proud of me, Daddy?" asked Carly.

"Very." Perry hugged his daughter, before putting her down on the ground.

"So how did the mission go?" Portia asked again.

Perry told his mate everything that had happened on the mission. Portia's eyebrows raised at the end of it. "You _have_ to show me that video."

"I totally will. In fact, I'm going down to Kane's lab right now to get it developed." Perry ruffled the top of Carly's head. "Wanna come with?"

Carly jumped up and down in excitement. "Yes, yes, yes!"

She leapt into Perry's arms. "I wanna go to the lab! Wanna go! Can I, Mommy?"

"Well, it _is_ your father's turn to look after you," Portia said. "Go on, then. I have to give my monthly report to Major Monogram anyway."

"Yay!" yelled Carly.

Perry held his daughter's hand and led her out of the office and towards Kane's lab, which took up the entire floor above the office floor. As they were going up the stairs, Carly was prattling non-stop about how great she was at kickball. Perry was only half-listening; he just couldn't believe that such a sweet, enthusiastic little girl like her could be his. He felt incredibly blessed to have her.

When they got up to the lab, Perry spotted Kane on the other side of the room, looking at and flinging around various 3D holograms. He seemed agitated. After a few seconds of the two platypuses being there, Kane turned round and flung something with all his might at the wall above Perry's and Carly's heads. Luckily, it was a hologram anyway, so they were in no danger of being hut, though Carly gave a squeak and clutched her father's arm.

Still holding his daughter's hand, Perry went over to Kane and said, "Is everything okay here?"

"Oh, Agent P." Kane rubbed his forehead. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in. I'm trying to put together what Kirk's plan could be from all the clues I have but nothing's adding up. It's just all so random. Capturing OWCA agents only to let them go again, staying quiet for weeks at a time, sending his operatives into the woods for no apparent reason. Absolutely nothing's adding up and it's extremely frustrating because I've always been able to somewhat-accurately predict my brother's plans but-." He paused and frowned down at Perry. "Forgive me, Agent P. I didn't mean to go off on a rant. Was there something you needed?"

Perry was staring off into space, considering Kirk's plan, and didn't answer until Kane repeated the question. "Oh, I wanted to ask if you could develop the film from the camera in my hat. I took some photos of Rodney's ray, and a very hilarious video of my team fighting the robot."

"I heard about that from Pinky," Kane grinned.

"Did he tell you?"

Kane shook his head. "He's submitted his report already."

Perry stared at him. "Seriously? We've literally been back from the mission half an hour, tops."

"He's a speedy typer."

"Apparently." Perry handed over his hat to Kane, who took out the camera from it and plugged it into a terminal on the opposite side of the room.

As Kane was downloading the photos and videos, Carly let go of her father's hand and skipped over to some kind of android sitting in the corner. Perry noticed too late that she was about to press a button. "Carly, don't!"

But the button had already been pushed. The android sprang to life and attacked Carly, who backward-somersaulted out of the way. It chased her all around the lab. The android's speed was unbelievable—it probably would have caught Perry within half a minute—but Carly managed to last three minutes running from it before Kane was able to leap on it and switch it off.

"Carly, remember the rule of being up here?" Perry scolded his daughter.

"Don't touch anything, especially if you don't know what it does," Carly said meekly, bowing her head. "Sorry, Daddy."

"I'm not the one you need to say sorry to."

Carly turned to Kane but the inventor grinned. "It's okay. I'm just impressed you managed to out run that thing. I designed it specifically to be fast."

"So I'm faster than a robot that's supposed to be fast?" Carly said.

Kane nodded.

"I'm awesome!" Carly yelled, punching the air.

Perry chuckled and ruffled his daughter's head again. "Yes, yes you are." He turned to Kane. "I'll go down and write up my report."

"If you print it out and bring it up to me on paper, not only will it eliminate the need for me to print it out, but you can also pick up your camera and the footage from it," Kane said.

Perry nodded. "Alright then." He took Carly's hand. "Come on, sweetie. Let's go find your mother."

…

 **Aww, who else loves little Carly? She's so cute!**


	3. A Disturbing Dream Shared

**Author's Note: some mentions of blood and death in this chapter**

…

After Perry dropped off his report, Kane stood alone in his lab. He had printed out almost every photo that Perry's hat had captured of the ray, which, admittedly, was only about three. The entire south wall of his lab was dedicated to a board of photos of various LOVEMUFFIN inventions, of which there was a lot. Over the last few months, various agents had collected photographs of exactly eleven different rays that all looked very different, but there was one thing they all had in common: nobody knew what they did. Another recurring theme was that the agents would come into contact with a giant robot of some kind, and he had printed out photos of these too.

Kane added to the wall the photos of the newest ray and the newest robot, and connected the two with red string. He stepped back and rested his hands on his hips, surveying his wall. He knew there must be something that he was missing but he couldn't see it. Something must be connecting these robots and rays but he just couldn't see it.

Rubbing his eyes, he turned away and leant against the desk in the corner. He was tired; he hadn't had any sleep in almost two days. Being the mission controller at OWCA had its perks but it also had drawbacks, and those drawbacks were often quite major, like very long working hours.

He sat down behind his desk and began typing something up on his computer, when he made the mistake of resting his eyes for a moment. Within ten seconds, he was asleep and dreaming.

…

 _Kane was inside a room; a large hall of sorts. He was looking at something; a special ray that looked incredibly sophisticated. He wondered why the design looked familiar, until he realised that it was because he had seen parts of this ray on the eleven different rays that the agents had collected photos of. He recognised the satellite-dish-shaped "barrel" of the ray, the hourglass-shaped body of the ray, and its purple colour from three of the rays that he had photographs of, the latter feature of which was from the most recent photo: the one Perry had taken._

 _A noise made him turn. He saw two people come into the room. The one in front was his younger brother, Kirk. The one behind was Kane himself. Apparently neither of them could see him._

 _Real-Kane stepped back as Kirk proudly unveiled the ray to Dream-Kane, who stared at it in astonishment. "Kirk…this is your special ray?" Dream-Kane gasped. "This is what all the parts have been for?"_

 _"_ _Yep," grinned Kirk, looking incredibly pleased with himself._

 _Real-Kane was very confused. The rays that he had taken photographs of had been LOVEMUFFIN rays. But here was Kirk, the leader of ARCHANGEL, telling his dream-self that this was_ his _ray. Did Kirk steal the designs from LOVEMUFFIN? Was it the other way round? Real-Kane hoped the rest of the dream would provide answers to this._

 _"_ _Wh-what does it do?" Dream-Kane asked, stepping past Kirk to inspect the ray's design._

 _Dream-Kane didn't notice Kirk slipping the dagger out of his sleeve but Real-Kane did. He strode towards Kirk but his hand went straight through his younger brother. He remembered that he was in a dream._

 _"_ _I can't tell you that," Kirk said, slowly advancing on Dream-Kane._

 _"_ _Why?" demanded Dream-Kane. "We had a deal!"_

 _"_ _Because, brother, it is as you said."_

 _Real-Kane darted over to the ray and watched in horror as Kirk literally stabbed Dream-Kane in the back, making his dream-self's eyes widen in shock and pain._

 _"_ _I am the backstabbing brother," Kirk said, a creepy smile coming over his face._

 _Real-Kane covered his mouth with his hand as he watched his dream-self crumple to the floor, clearly dead. He would never have believed that Kirk would ever kill his own brother, but if this dream was to be taken as a vision of the future, that was exactly what Kirk was going to do._

 _Kirk suddenly turned round, his dagger still dripping with blood, and looked Real-Kane right in the eye. "Kane," Kirk proclaimed, pointing the dagger at him._

 _Real-Kane backed up as Kirk began yelling his name over and over again._

…

Kane suddenly woke up with a start, his head pounding. He felt his heart pounding beneath his shirt, and there was sweat trickling down his face. He quickly calmed himself by asserting the fact that he was still sitting behind his desk. Kirk hadn't killed him.

He looked to his left and saw, to his surprise, Perry standing there, a very worried expression on his face. "Are you okay?" the platypus agent asked.

Kane nodded. "I'm fine," he replied, attempting to push down his fear over the dream. "I just fell asleep."

"Are you sure?" Perry looked doubtful. "Because I just had the strangest dream about you. Your own brother killed you-." Kane stared at him. "-and I thought that…it had already happened, or was happening now, or something." He frowned, spotting Kane staring at him. "What?"

"I had the exact same dream just now," Kane replied, and he explained his dream.

"That is exactly the same," Perry agreed when Kane was done. "Are you okay with it?"

"Yeah, fine," Kane said offhandedly. "Honestly, it didn't disturb me _that_ much."

"So, assuming this dream is a prophecy, sometime in the future, you're going to make some kind of deal with Kirk and he's going to break it and kill you."

Kane nodded, a stab of fear hitting his stomach. "Apparently."

"You cannot make any kind of deal with Kirk," Perry stated, folding his arms.

"I know," Kane said. "I wouldn't usually, but especially after that."

He shuddered. Perhaps the dream—more like a nightmare—was affecting him more than he wanted to let on. He closed his eyes against the headache that was still raging on in his head.

Perry was worried about Kane; he knew that his friend was downplaying how much the dream had affected him. Not even Kane could watch himself be killed by his own brother, even in a dream, and wake up unaffected.

But a moment later, Carly ran up the stairs to the lab, crying, "Daddy! Daddy!"

Kane stood up sharply as Perry ran over to his daughter, both of them alarmed by the fear in her voice. "What is it, Carly?" Perry asked urgently.

"Mommy's outside," the small platypus panted. "She said to hurry."

Perry quickly picked up his daughter, waved a quick goodbye to Kane, and raced down the stairs. It was late evening so most everyone had gone home for the night, but Perry still had to dodge round some agents who were in his way.

When he reached the front door, he burst through it and ran out onto the lawn. The sun had not quite set yet, so there was enough light for Perry to clearly see Portia standing by the security fence. Putting Carly down, Perry sprinted over to her and panted, "Portia, are you okay?"

"There," Portia whispered, pointing.

Perry peered through the fence and almost had a heart attack when he saw the crumped form of the golden retriever lying on the other side of the fence. "Georgia?" gasped Perry.

The golden retriever weakly lifted her head. She looked severely starved and dehydrated, and there were various cuts and bruises all over her body, head, and limbs. She coughed and then wheezed, "Oliver…"

"What happened to you?" Perry asked, kneeling down so that he was as close to Georgia's eye level as possible. Portia knelt down next to him. "Why'd you come back? Where's Oliver?"

"Kirk-." Georgia suddenly had a coughing fit. "Kirk…killed…Oliver…"

…

 ***gasp* well, I've been planning this for ages—since I wrote about their escape, to be precise—so it's not that much of a shock to me XD**

 **Also: what about Kane's dream? What do you think it means?**


	4. Nightmare Scenario

Perry, Portia, and Pansy were sitting in the hospital waiting room, waiting anxiously for Apollo's diagnosis. Carly was being looked after by Kane.

Pansy, who didn't properly know Georgia, was only there for emotional support, though she could see it wasn't really needed; Perry and Portia were clutching each other tightly as if some invisible force was trying to rip them apart.

They were forced to wait two hours before Apollo gravely entered the waiting room, causing Perry and Portia to shoot out of their seats as fast as if they had been stung.

"How is she?" Portia asked anxiously.

"I'm not going to lie," Apollo sighed, rubbing his eyes with his index fingers on both hands. "It's bad. She's had the very bare minimum to survive, nutrition wise. She's been beaten many times; there's bruises and cuts all over her body, but it's the internal bleeding in her abdomen and chest that I'm worried about."

"Will she live?" Perry asked, sick with nerves.

Apollo's lack of an immediate reply made Perry both despairing and hopeful at the same time. "It's unknown at the moment," he said eventually. "We're working on her but she'll mostly likely have to be placed in an induced coma while we do so."

"What about nutrition?" asked Portia, clearly scared. "If she's in a coma, she can't eat or drink. Won't that make her even more starved and dehydrated?"

"While she recovers from her injuries, we can give her vitamin supplements," Apollo replied. "They'll give her sufficient nutrition until she recovers properly, then she can eat regular meals. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; I don't know if she'll even survive, let alone recover fully."

Portia let out a muted sob and buried her face in Perry's shoulder. Pansy's face had a sympathetic look on her face. "Can they see her?" she asked. "How many visitors are patients allowed?"

"Only two visitors at a time," replied Apollo, frowning. "But I think it would be best if you didn't see her for now. She's still in an extremely delicate condition."

"What if she dies?" demanded Perry, glaring at Apollo. "And we won't have had the chance to say goodbye?"

Apollo stayed composed under the teal platypus's angry glare. "I assure you, if anything like that happens, you will be sent for immediately."

Perry held his glare for a moment longer before he looked away and closed his eyes, trying to prevent himself from crying.

"I assure you, we're going to do everything in our power to save her," Apollo said gently.

"Then stop wasting time and get in there!" snarled Perry. "While she still has a chance!"

Perry let go of Portia, roughly pushed past Apollo, and left the room. Pansy and Portia exchanged a sad look before they followed, with the former platypus giving a short apology to Apollo before they left.

The two girls found Perry lying curled up under the table that held the small fax machine. They both crouched down so that they could see the teal platypus.

"I hate this," the platypus snapped. "I hate injuries and illness. If it were an enemy plaguing Georgia, I could beat it up and make it leave her alone."

"It is an enemy, Perry," Pansy said gently. "But it's an enemy you cannot see, hear, or touch. You can only see the damage it is doing. Only Georgia can fight this enemy—with help from Apollo—and when she's ready, she will beat the enemy and the damage will be healed. Until then, we have to be strong for her. Okay?"

Perry nodded miserably. "But it's hard."

Portia took over. "We know, Perry. You think it's any easier on me? I've spent twice as long with her as you have. It's tearing me apart on the inside, but at least she's here. She trusted us enough to come and find us when she was hurt like that."

"But there's what she said," Perry said miserably. "Kirk killed Oliver. Oliver's dead."

"What Georgia thought she saw might not be what she actually saw," Portia said, her voice only just betraying the inner pain she was feeling. "I'm not going to believe it until I see Oliver's body."

"You know what Kirk's like," said Perry unhappily. "And you told me he's gotten worse in five years. It's been four years since you were last there. He probably killed Oliver without a second thought."

Remembering his dream, Perry realised that Kirk must have changed. Nine years ago, when he had last been in ARCHANGEL, Kirk hadn't seemed capable of even trying to kill his brother in a fight, let alone stabbing him in the back with a dagger. Perry made a mental note to keep Kane away from Kirk for the foreseeable future.

…

Kane had gone outside with Carly for some fresh air. They stood by the security fence and gazed at the dark sky, spotting some stars. Kane was still mentally going over his dream. It really worried him; like Perry, he definitely would not have thought Kirk capable of killing his brother the last time he had seen his younger brother.

He was also musing something else: blueprints for the speedy robot and a few other ideas for robots had gone missing from his lab the day before. Seeing Carly being chased by the robot had reminded him of this. He had no idea where they had gone but he was worried because those blueprints in the wrong hands (*cough*Kirk*cough*) would be a very big problem.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice when Carly spotted a moth and began chasing after it. He only noticed when he spotted her running out of the metal gate after the moth. Kane quickly began running as fast as he could and scooped Carly up a few metres on the other side of the fence. "Carly! Remember what your dad said?"

"Don't touch anything," Carly replied proudly.

"No." Kane wondered if Perry had actually told his daughter this. He put the platypus down and looked her in the eye. "Stay on the inside of the fence. It's not safe out here."

"Oh…" Carly bowed her head. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Just make sure you-." Kane happened to look up at that point and spotted a hooded figure standing about twenty metres away from them. It was mostly hidden by the cover of the trees but Kane recognised the figure straight away.

"Oh no…"

"What?" Carly asked, terrified.

Kane quickly herded Carly back towards the security gate. Carly scrambled through but before Kane could follow, the gate slammed shut with a loud bang, making Carly scream briefly. Kane, who was now on the opposite side of the gate to her, quickly bent down to Carly's eye level and said urgently, "Go get your dad, okay? Go find him and bring him back here, okay?"

"Okay," Carly said fearfully. She turned and ran towards OWCA HQ.

...

 **dun dUN DUUUUN! WHO IS THE FIGURE?!**


	5. The Bargain

Kane stood up and turned round slowly to face the figure, who was now just five or so metres away from him, and who had now taken off his hood. His heart was beating very fast but he calmed himself down enough to say, "Kirk."

Kane's younger brother gave a friendly smile. "Hello bro."

Kane backed against the metal gate as he spotted a dagger attached to Kirk's belt: the same dagger that was going to kill him, according to his dream.

"What are you doing here?" Kane demanded. "Your place is at ARCHANGEL and mine is at OWCA."

"I know," said Kirk dolefully. "Alas, brother, I need your help."

Kane narrowed his eyes. Apparently, this was the deal that he was going to make, which Kirk was going to end up breaking. Perry's words began to echo in his head: _"you cannot make any kind of deal with Kirk."_ Kane knew that Perry was right but at this moment he didn't see that he had much of a choice. "What with?" he asked.

"You do remember our oldest brother, right?"

"Kegan? I haven't seen him in years, but yes."

"Well, he's created these brand new robots that are too much for ARCHANGEL to handle."

Kane scoffed and shot his brother a look that was half-smug, half-disbelieving. "I never thought I'd ever hear the great Kirk Kennedy say _those_ words."

Kirk scowled and snapped, "Shut up," which delighted Kane. Not only was it fun to see Kirk's face display a non-smirk expression, it showed him that his brother could still be annoyed like when they were children.

At that moment, Kane heard footsteps. He turned round and saw four platypuses run onto the grass: Perry, Portia, Pansy, and Carly. They all stopped just behind the gate. All three adults tried to open the gate in rapid succession but they all failed. Kane turned back to Kirk and found him staring with interest at Portia, who was holding Carly in her arms.

"If it's robots you're worried about, why not go to someone with exceptional fighting skills?" Kane asked, folding his arms. "What can I do against robots?"

"We can fight the robots but we can't beat them. They have a much too complex design," Kirk said. "And as much as it pains me to admit it, you were always much better with electronics and engineering. If we distract the robots, you can short them out for good."

"And why exactly would I help you?" Kane asked. "You've been nothing but trouble for me and this organisation for fourteen years."

Kane gave a small shrug, a look of sadness coming onto his face. Kane almost burnt his eyes out trying to figure out if the sadness was genuine. "Because these robots have already killed one of my Taskers: an ocelot by the name of Oliver."

"YOU LIAR!" howled Portia's voice. Kane didn't turn round but he heard the gate rattle. "YOU LIAR! YOU KILLED OLIVER!"

Kane tensed up but Kirk did not react to this. "I do not lie when it comes to my Taskers."

"You told us Perry was dead for four years!" Portia snarled.

"No, you _assumed_ Perry was dead for four years," Kirk corrected calmly.

Portia glared daggers at Kirk but fell silent.

"So what about it, brother?" Kirk asked, spreading his hands theatrically. "Will you help me take down our brother?"

Kane considered. He could almost hear Perry screaming at him not to do it. He knew it was most likely going to turn out to be a massive mistake, but he said, "On two conditions."

"Just two?" asked Kirk amusedly.

"One, no matter where we go, I need to be able to make contact with someone at OWCA whenever I want."

"I shall allow you a communicator," Kirk said graciously, as if he had just granted Kane a stay of execution.

"Two, I need you to give me honest answers to everything I ask you," Kane said, a stern look in his eye. "No matter what questions I ask you, I need honest answers with all the information that is relevant."

Kirk didn't seem happy about that one. "Why?"

"That's the condition," Kane said firmly.

As Kirk deliberated, Kane turned to look at Perry, who had a half-worried, half-dubious look on his face. The platypus shook his head slightly, a clear sign for _don't do it._

Before Kane could make any kind of reply, Kirk spoke up: "I agree to your conditions, brother."

"And you'll keep to them?" Kane said. "We've three witnesses here, not counting the child."

Kirk held up his hand. "I swear."

Kane still didn't wholly trust or believe him but he gave a stiff nod. "Just give me a couple of hours to get some gear together."

"I shall wait for you out here," Kirk declared.

Kane snorted. "Not alone, you won't. Pansy, can you stay with him?"

Pansy nodded and narrowed her eyes at Kirk. "Believe me, I won't leave this spot."

Satisfied, Kane opened the gate from the outside and went through, making sure to lock the gate behind him.

"What if he runs away?" Pansy asked as he came through.

"I won't," Kirk said, looking affronted.

"He won't," Kane agreed. "He wouldn't gain anything by running away now." He bent down beside Pansy and whispered in her ear: "If he does, call Agent E to tail him."

"Got it."

Kane headed towards OWCA's building. Perry ran until he was able to fall into step beside him. The platypus didn't speak until both of them made it up to the lab. As Kane took out a large backpack and began finding gear, Perry hissed, "Are you out of your mind?"

"Possibly," Kane muttered in reply, slipping the dagger with the extendable blade into the sheath on his belt. He wished he could change clothes—after all, he was currently wearing what his dream-self had been wearing when Kirk stabbed him—but he didn't have time.

"Remember what I said? Don't make any kind of deal with Kirk! Two hours later, you make a deal with Kirk!"

"It's the only way to solve this mystery," Kane replied, putting some equipment into his backpack.

"What mystery?" demanded Perry.

Kane waved a hand towards the south wall. Perry turned to face it, and his eyes widened as he took in all the information on it. "That mystery," Kane said. "Working with Kirk might be the only chance I get to solve this. You've seen the robots and the rays. They don't have anything in common. I _need_ to solve this, for the sake of my OCD."

Perry chuckled. "For anything else?"

"No, not really." Kane hesitated. "Look, Perry, I know I'm taking a massive risk, even without the prophecy-dream, but OWCA is all about finding the truth and beating evil. Now it's my turn."

Perry surprised Kane by walking over to him and hugging him around the legs. "Be careful," he said.

Kane nodded and slung the backpack's straps over his shoulders. "I will. I assume you won't mind being my port of call?"

Perry looked at him in confusion. Kane held up a communicator and wiggled it.

"Oh, yes. Of course."

"Catch." Kane picked up another communicator from the side and tossed it to Perry, who snatched it easily out of the air.

"I'll mostly be here anyway; I'm going to stay as near to Georgia as I can."

"Tell me if there are any developments," Kane said.

Perry nodded. "Will do."

He watched as his friend walked down the stairs and out of sight, possibly forever.

…

 **Kane is awesome :) doesn't mean I won't kill him off, though I:}**


	6. Fun and Games

**Sorry this took so long, I was focusing on other things :/**

…

After a while, Perry went back down to visit Georgia. Apollo was nowhere in sight so the teal platypus entered the medical bay and found the small golden retriever lying in one of the hospital beds with her two arms over the covers, displaying several bruises. She looked incredibly frail and fragile, and it nearly killed Perry to see the tube thing attached to her wrist, because it reminded Perry that Georgia might not survive.

He sat down in the chair next to her bed and slowly began stroking her arm. He hoped she could feel it; he remembered from nine years ago that she loved being stroked, like pretty much all dogs did. After a minute or so, he moved to her head and gently began stroking that, again hoping she could feel it.

He was already worried about Kane. His friend had only been gone for about an hour but Perry trusted Kirk about as far as he could kick him out to sea, something he was planning on doing if Kirk hurt Kane in any way. For example, stabbing him in the back.

Perry was still very concerned about the dream that Kane and he had shared. He hoped that Kane knew what he was doing, because Kane was his oldest friend at OWCA, apart from perhaps Monty or Lyla. Kane had trained Perry in the rules and ways of OWCA. He had basically made Perry into the OWCA agent he was today.

The problem was that Kane was too selfless for his own good. Perry would have told Kirk to stuff his problem in the nearest hippo's mouth. But perhaps it was because Perry was not actually related to Kirk that he would have done that. Kane and Kirk were brothers, so perhaps Kane felt obligated to help family.

But then there was the lie Kirk had told them: that it was Kegan's robot that had killed Oliver. Perry didn't believe it at all. Not only had Kirk always been a liar, his "itchy trigger finger", as it were, with the dagger was well known. Perry knew that Georgia must be telling the truth.

Lo and behold, Perry's train of thought was back on Georgia. It had done a full circle and arrived back on the poor golden retriever lying, almost dead, on the bed in front of him. He had been unconsciously stroking Georgia's head while he had been pondering Kirk's true motives. He gave a weak smile and began to gently scratch Georgia under the ears. Her head moved, startling Perry. It wasn't a strong movement but it definitely moved from looking left to looking right. At first, Perry was convinced he had moved her head accidentally when he scratched her, but then she did the movement again, and Perry immediately became convinced that Georgia was actually awake and able to hear him, so he began talking to her.

"Hey Georgia. It's Perry. I know I'm probably your least favourite person right now, but just hear me out, okay? You're in OWCA. I hope you remember that you came to us with lots of injuries, telling us that Kirk killed Oliver. Our doctor, Apollo, is taking care of you. Portia's out looking after our daughter at the moment, but she's been in here too. We both want you to recover, Georgia. I know you feel like I betrayed you—and honestly, I don't blame you—but I never stopped caring deeply about you. You were one of my best friends, along with Portia and Oliver, back in ARCHANGEL, and it hasn't been the same without you two here. I-I know that it will never be the same again, what with Oliver being…gone, but I desperately need you to recover. Please, Georgia."

Through his teary vision, Perry managed to spot a figure standing a little way away from him. When he wiped his eyes with his hand, he saw that it was Apollo, holding a syringe in one hand. "Sorry…I know it isn't visiting hours."

Perry began to stand up from his chair but Apollo placed a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down. Then the doctor wordlessly gave Perry the syringe. "Vitamins," he said.

Perry stared blearily at him. "What?"

Apollo turned Georgia's arm over and pointed to her wrist. "Just here."

"You're trusting me with it?"

Apollo nodded.

"But what if I don't hit a vein or artery?"

"It's not the end of the world," Apollo replied. "The necessary nutrients will get into her bloodstream wherever you inject it." He paused. "I just thought that you would like to be the one keeping her alive."

Perry nodded determinedly. He stood up and injected the contents of the syringe into Georgia's wrist. Apollo examined the golden retriever. "Nice," he said. "You got a vein."

Perry sighed in relief.

At that moment, Portia came into the hospital wing, holding Carly's hand.

"Daddy!" yelled the child.

Perry smiled and bent down, opening his arms for a hug. Carly let go of her mother's hand and raced to her father, flinging herself into his arms. They both laughed as they cuddled.

"Isn't it a certain someone's birthday tomorrow?" Portia asked, smiling, as she walked over to her mate and child.

"Mine!" Carly shrieked. "It's my birthday tomorrow!"

"And how old are you going to be?" Perry asked, grinning.

"Three!" Carly proclaimed proudly. "I'm going to be three!"

"Three?" gasped Perry, mock-shocked. "No way! Weren't you just born last year?"

"No," giggled Carly. "I'm going to be three!"

"Okay." Perry pretended to think. "How would you feel about you, your mother, and I all going swimming as an early birthday treat?"

Carly's eyes widened. "YES!" she shrieked. "YES, YES, YES!"

Perry looked up at Portia. "What about it? Let's go swimming."

Portia's face broke out into a smile. "I haven't been swimming in a long time. That sounds fun."

Perry also smiled. "Great." He turned to look up at Apollo. "Will you-?"

"I'll send someone if Georgia's condition changes," Apollo said.

"Thanks," Perry said gratefully.

…

Carly shrieked with glee, kicking a spray of chlorinated water up as she propelled herself across the pool. Portia, who was sitting on the side of the pool and trailing her legs in the water, laughed and protected her eyes from the spray using her hand. "Sweetie, try not to make so much spray, okay?"

"Okay!"

Carly immediately hopped out of the pool, climbed up to the highest diving board, and leapt off. Perry and Portia watched their daughter gracefully somersault and twist like an Olympic diver, landing in the water with barely a splash.

The proud parents immediately began clapping. Perry, who was standing in the shallow end, swam over to his daughter and hugged her tightly. "That was incredible, Carly!"

"I wanna go again!" Carly said enthusiastically.

"First, let's ambush your mom," Perry whispered conspiratorially.

Carly giggled.

Perry waited until Portia wasn't watching, then he swam underwater, seized his mate's legs, and pulled. Portia was yanked into the water, spluttering. Carly swam over to the two laughing adults and the platypus family hugged tightly while treading water.

Despite their current problems, it felt good to just relax like this.

…

 **Aww…cute, right? Next chapter: Kane! XD**


	7. Back In ARCHANGEL

**Author's Note: blood appears in this chapter—nothing too severe, though.**

…

Kirk took Kane to ARCHANGEL's base. He had been here before, even though it had been over a decade ago, but the fact that this was enemy territory meant that he was both extremely alert and extremely jumpy. He had one hand on his dagger at all times, but even this didn't seem enough.

"Paranoid?" Kirk asked with a wry grin.

Kane glared at his brother. "Let's see: I'm in an enemy base with my psychotic brother and several dozen animals with various ways of killing that will all come running to maul or kill me if said psychotic brother gives the word. So yeah, I'm a little paranoid."

"Why on Earth do you think I would give the order to kill you? That would be against our deal, wouldn't it?"

"Because that's what you do," Kane snapped, leaning against the wall. "Kegan's the insane brother, I'm the intelligent brother, and you're the backstabbing brother."

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than he instantly regretted them, remembering a part of his dream: Kirk saying, _"Because, brother, it is as you said: I am the backstabbing brother."_ Kane knew that his dream was slowly coming true. This gave him the uneasy feeling that his dream was set in stone; if that was the case, he was going to die at the hand—or dagger—of his brother.

As they walked into the massive hall, Kane caught sight of a few animals hanging around: a cheetah, an owl, and a rhino. The fastest, the one with the best night vision, and the strongest. Typical Kirk.

A small male Border Collie dog came running out of nowhere and accidentally bumped into Kirk, who immediately kicked the dog as hard as he could. The poor dog tumbled over with a yelp of pain. Kirk then savagely kicked the dog again and again, making it whimper and yelp. Unable to stand such cruelty, Kane forcibly pushed Kirk away from the poor dog, which turned out to be a mistake.

His action invoked the wrath of the cheetah, which suddenly leapt up and attacked Kane with claws and jaws. Kane tried to fend off the attack but the cheetah was too fast, and it scored its claws down Kane's chest. Kane fell sideways as the cheetah dealt a stunning blow to his head.

Kirk suddenly appeared in front of Kane, protecting him from the angry cheetah's wrath. "Easy, Charlie. Thank you for protecting me but it is not necessary. This man is a guest for now, alright? Spread the word."

The cheetah nodded and sped off.

Kirk knelt down beside Kane, who was lying on his side, eyes screwed shut, clutching the bloody wound in his chest. "Told you," Kane panted.

"I'm the only one who can stop you from dying right now, so I'd appreciate it if you would tone down the sarcasm."

"Nggh…" Kane's wound flared up with pain, causing him to let out a cry. "Nnn…ahh…"

"Stop being such a wimp," Kirk said, getting out a bandage. "I'm going to have to roll up your shirt, okay? Don't think I'm trying to kill you or something."

"Just get on with it," snapped Kane through the pain of both his injury and his throbbing head. "That cheetah is lethal."

"He's a hunter," Kirk replied. After rolling Kane onto his back, he began to push Kane's shirt up. "And a protector. It's not his fault. He saw you push me and immediately leapt to my defence."

"Honour. Huh. And here I was thinking all your animals had inherited all _your_ characteristics."

Kirk stopped moving and gave Kane an affronted look. "You know, I could just let you bleed out. Are you going to be like this all week?"

"What, sarcastic?" Kane let out a bitter chuckle. "Not at all. It's not like my life solely depends on my weird brother who hates me."

Kirk rolled his eyes and resumed wrapping the bandage around Kane's chest. "I think you're getting delirious."

"Nah, I always talk like this." Kane chuckled again, causing his chest to heave painfully. "This is what you're going to have to put up with: my dry wit and shining personality."

Kirk gave a smile at that, the first real emotion that Kane's brother had displayed in a long time. It reminded Kane of when they were little boys, defending each other from Kegan's bullying.

"There," Kirk said, sitting back on his legs. "Done."

Kane took a moment to inspect the bandage. Kirk rolled his eyes as he watched his brother prod and poke the bandage. "It's not going to eat you, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't put anything past you."

Kirk just sighed and pushed himself to his feet. "If you're going to be this insulting all the time-."

Kane was suddenly afraid that Kirk was going to call a vicious animal down so he quickly stood up. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

Kane paused, wondering if he should make a sarcastic reply. Luckily, the choice was made for him. He bent over in pain as his chest flared up. Standing up too fast had been a massive mistake.

"Just come on," Kirk snapped. "We've dilly-dallied enough already."

Kane shut his mouth and followed Kirk out of the hall, smoothing his shirt down. They walked past a room with about four bunk beds in it, and then they went into a room that was clearly an office: it had a bureau, a bookshelf, a desk with an office chair, and several filing cabinets.

As Kane looked around sadly, recalling memories of being in this place, Kirk went to his desk and picked up a piece of paper, which he handed to Kane. On it were the words:

 **YOU MIGHT WANT TO PREPARE YOUR ORGANISATION, KIRK KENNEDY**

 **FRIDAY, KEGAN**

Kane frowned. "Kegan's going to attack your base? On Friday?"

"Apparently," Kirk replied, hopping onto his desk. "Unfortunately, Kegan only sends warnings when he's very confident that he's going to win. If we've had a hundred battles in the past, he's warned us about perhaps twenty of them. And those twenty are the only ones we've lost. That's why I called you: I don't want to risk the lives of my Taskers."

"Why not ask OWCA to help?" Kane asked.

"Because I have enough animals to fight," replied Kirk. "I need a technical expert to find a way to disassemble them for good so they can't hurt my Taskers anymore."

"So…" Kane paused. "Tell me about the last attack. The one that killed Oliver."

Kirk frowned, and Kane was afraid for a minute that his brother had noticed that Kane was testing him to see if he was lying. Then Kirk answered, "It was a few days ago. Kegan attacked the base without warning. Oliver and Georgia were the first to defend me but one of the robots shot Oliver through the chest and managed to beat Georgia quite badly before my other Taskers could stop it. She ran off; I didn't see where she went."

"Perhaps she couldn't have beaten the robots because she didn't have the strength." Kane narrowed his eyes at his brother. "She was severely starved and dehydrated when Perry found her."

"That was a punishment," admitted Kirk. "She and Oliver. They failed me one too many times so they lost their food and water privileges."

"Food and water are not privileges, they're rights!" Kane snapped. "You can't starve and parch animals as a punishment! And another thing," he added as Kirk opened his mouth, possible to defend himself. "Did you realise that perhaps Oliver died because he was too weak to defend himself?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," Kirk said, actually looking remorseful. "Believe me, if Georgia had stayed and survived after the attack, I would definitely have taken her off the starvation punishment. I had no idea that my admittedly too severe punishment would end in Oliver's death."

Kane wasn't entirely sure he believed Kirk about any of it—the attack, Oliver's death by robot—but he kept silent. The time he was spending here was valuable; he could learn more about Kirk and ARCHANGEL.

And he was learning a LOT about Kirk…

…

 **Poor Oliver :(**

 **Also: sassy Kane! XD XD**


	8. Learning The Enemy's Plan

When Perry and his family got back to headquarters, they decided to go and see Georgia again. It had been a couple of hours since they had last visited her, and they wanted to see her as much as possible in case they suddenly couldn't anymore, for whatever reason.

Apollo was clearing her bedside table when they came in. He looked up as Perry approached. "Oh, Perry. Major Monogram was looking for you. He wants you to go on a mission."

"Now?"

"Pretty soon," Apollo replied airily.

Perry turned to his family. "You guys stay here with Georgia. Get some time in. I'll be back later, hopefully."

Perry kissed his mate briefly and gave his daughter a hug before leaving the hospital bay. As he headed to Major Monogram's office, he wondered what the mission was. Perhaps it was to do with Rodney and Rodrigo's secret death ray. He had first heard of it four years ago from Monty Monogram; apparently the two leaders of LOVEMUFFIN had been building a secret death ray. Four years later, they still hadn't unveiled it. Either the plans had been scrapped, it was taking a long time to build, or, more likely, they had completed it and were biding their time to use it.

Perry was about to walk straight into the major's office when he remembered that his superior disliked it when Perry didn't knock so he hit the door with his fist and immediately walked in. Major Monogram was, once again, sat behind his desk, and he gave Perry a tired look. "Thank you for knocking, Agent P, but there's not much point in it if you don't wait for me to say you can come in."

"Sorry, sir."

Major Monogram gestured to one of two chairs in front of his desk. He didn't even need to say "sit". Perry recognised the gesture so he walked over to the desk and sat on the chair. He glanced next to him and found Pansy smiling at him from the chair beside him. He gave a smile back.

"Since Kane is not with us at the moment, I'll be giving you your mission today," began Major Monogram. "I'm sure you remember, four years ago, that Rodney and Rodrigo of LOVEMUFFIN were building a secret ray."

Perry nodded slowly. So he had been right: this WAS about that.

"Now, this is rather worrying," Major Monogram continued. "In more ways than one. However, recent intel indicates that this death ray is not pointed towards OWCA."

Pansy frowned. "Then who is it pointed towards?"

"And why is that a problem?" Perry added.

Major Monogram answered Perry's question first. "It's not a problem. At least, not a major problem. And to answer your question, Agent Pansy, our most current information suggests that LOVEMUFFIN bear some kind of malice towards ARCHANGEL."

Perry hadn't been expecting that. "What? Why?"

"Kirk Kennedy and Rodney have always disliked each other," Major Monogram replied.

"Well, I dislike several agents in this organisation but _I_ wouldn't go around pointing weapons at them," Pansy pointed out.

"Exactly." Major Monogram pointed at Pansy. "And that's what I need you two to find out. This is to be a Code Blue, but hopefully you'll be in and out before they even realise you're there."

Code Blue meant a stealth mission but with the authority to engage hostiles if necessary.

"Why do we want to prevent LOVEMUFFIN from firing at ARCHANGEL?" Pansy asked. "I mean, they're both our enemies. Shouldn't we let them take it out on each other?"

"First of all, there are young animals in ARCHANGEL's base who don't deserve to suffer. Second of all-."

"Kane's there," realised Perry.

"Exactly. Kane's too invaluable to us to risk injury on him."

"Plus the fact that he's friends with pretty much every agent here," Perry added with narrowed eyes.

"If we spot the weapon, should we destroy it?" asked Pansy.

"No." Major Monogram shook his head. "If you spot the weapon, take pictures of it and analyse it as best you can but do NOT destroy it."

"May I ask why, sir?" Perry inquired.

"This is just a recon mission. We need to find out what the ray does before we can destroy it. You know this organisation prefers getting information about rays first, before smashing them up."

"What if it looks like they're going to activate the ray while we're there?" Pansy asked. "Can we destroy it then?"

Major Monogram sighed. "Yes. But ONLY if you see it getting ready to fire. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," said both platypuses.

…

Armed with their weapons, Perry and Pansy crept up to LOVEMUFFIN's base. They hid in the bushes about twenty metres away from their target. "Ready for this?" Perry whispered.

"Born ready. Let's go."

Searchlights were powering through the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of an intruder. However, with quick movements, Perry and Pansy made it to the side of the building undetected. They climbed up the wall and into a vent.

When they exited the vent, they found themselves on a thin balcony that ran the length a massive hall, looking down on the space below. Perry could see two figures standing next to a giant ray in the middle of the room. In the corner stood Doctor Killbot, who looked like he was deactivated. Pansy and Perry both aimed their fedora cameras at as much of the hall as they could, from the ray to Killbot in the corner.

"We need to get closer," Perry whispered to Pansy, who nodded and pointed at the metal beam that ran across the middle of the hall.

The two platypuses crawled out onto the beam in order to see and hear what the two scientists—who Perry identified as Rodney and Rodrigo—were doing and saying.

"That Kennedy," Rodney was snapping. "He thinks he can march in over here and ask for a "peaceful surrender"? We are NEVER going to surrender!"

"I would have thought that was obvious," said the drawling voice of Rodrigo. "But then what are we going to do?"

Rodney appeared not to hear him. "I know what he's up to. He thinks he can just train up an army of animal operatives and he'll be OWCA's most powerful enemy. Well, I say "NO" to that! LOVEMUFFIN have been OWCA's most powerful enemy for decades. It should not change just because some young idiot decides to train some animals."

"To be fair, Kennedy's been doing this for almost fifteen years now," Rodrigo said.

"We've been in existence for twenty!" Rodney raised his fist dramatically. "And this proud organisation will not fall to ARCHANGEL!"

"I do agree with you, there. But I refer you back to my earlier question: what _are_ we going to do? Use the ray?"

Rodney smiled evilly. "We don't need to use the ray. We've got something much better."

"What do we have?"

"Kennedy's older brother, a robotics expert."

Perry took in a sharp breath. "Kegan…!"

"He's already built us an army of robots using a design stolen from Kennedy's other brother."

"Kane." Perry remembered his friend telling him about stolen plans. He turned and whispered to Pansy, "Kegan somehow managed to steal the plans for the robots from Kane."

"That's not good," Pansy whispered back.

"They will be unstoppable," Rodney finished with a grin. "And we will finally be rid of ARCHANGEL for good."

Perry nudged Pansy. "I think we've heard enough," he whispered.

Pansy nodded to show she agreed. "Let's get out of here."

As they began edging their way back across the metal beam, Doctor Killbot suddenly sprang to life and began shooting at the roof. Startled, both platypuses fell off the beam. Pansy wrapped her tail around the metal and grabbed Perry's feet to save them both from falling.

"OWCA agents!" Rodney hollered. "They heard everything! Don't let them leave!"

"Oh no," Pansy muttered. "This is going to be difficult."

Perry quickly generated a proton ring and flung it at Killbot, who dodged it but in doing so accidentally crashed into Rodney, knocking him over. As Rodney angrily screamed at the robot, Perry caught his proton ring and threw it again, this time at Rodrigo, who had just drawn a gun. The disk knocked the weapon out of the evil scientist's hand.

Pansy swung herself backwards and forwards until she had enough momentum to fling Perry at Rodrigo. Catching his disk in mid-air, Perry curled up into a ball, and it was in this shape that he hit Rodrigo, knocking the evil scientist out.

Meanwhile, Pansy dropped lightly down from the rafters and flipped her two energy batons out of their sheaths. Killbot attacked her, and she slashed at the robot's body with the sticks, scoring holes in it. Normal sticks would not have been able to pierce Killbot's armour but Pansy's batons had electricity sparking through the tips, so they aided her in getting as many hits as she did.

"Let's go!" yelled Perry, bolting for the exit.

Pansy delivered a final kick to Killbot, knocking him over, before she leapt up and raced after Perry. As they sprinted away from the base, Perry called to Pansy, "We have to tell Major Monogram about this. Kane is in serious danger."

…

 **Remember how Kane was contemplating who stole some plans of his in chapter 4? This was it :D**


	9. The War Begins

While Kirk was searching for something in his office, Kane got a call on his communicator. He glanced at his busy brother and stepped out of the office. "Perry?"

"Kane, you're all in danger."

"What?"

"Pansy and I just infiltrated LOVEMUFFIN. Not only does Rodney SUPER hate Kirk, but Kegan's also working for them."

Kane felt a stab in his chest. "Wh-what? Did you see him?"

"Well…no," admitted Perry. "But he said that they "had" him and his robots, so I'm assuming that he's working with them. And-." He quickly added. "Kegan stole your designs for them."

Kane's mouth fell open. "The missing robot designs from my lab…Kegan stole them?"

"Yes, and I'm pretty sure he's going to use them to attack ARCHANGEL. We came back from the mission over an hour ago but I had to wait until now to call you because Major Monogram made me write up my report before I did anything else. LOVEMUFFIN could be on their way to attack you right now."

"Understood. I'll tell Kirk and then we can prepa-."

At that moment, the ground violently shook. Kane stumbled and hit his arm on the wall as he tried to steady himself. "Kane, what was that?" Perry's worried voice demanded.

Kane, having almost crushed the communicator in his hand, answered, "I don't know but I have to go."

Another tremor shook the building as Kane put his communicator away. Kirk came running out of the office, two large guns in his hands. "I should have known Kegan wouldn't wait until Friday," he snarled.

Kane held out a hand towards Kirk, a gesture that clearly meant he wanted one of Kirk's guns, but Kane's younger brother just shot him a smirk. "We can handle this, brother. Your job is to short out the robots."

"How can I defend myself if they attack me?" retorted Kane.

Kirk shrugged non-committedly. "That's what the Taskers are for." With that, he hurried off down the corridor.

Kane sighed, rolled his eyes, and jogged after his brother. "This is not going to end well."

No sooner had the two brothers reached the entrance hall than the doors burst open and a silver blur raced in. "Careful, this robot can run really fast!" Kane called to Kirk, who immediately got slammed into and sent flying.

Kane ran over to his brother, who struggled into a sitting position, a hand over his chest. "No kidding," Kirk wheezed. "I think I bruised a few ribs." He gave Kane a look. "Exactly how did you know that?"

"Kegan stole my designs," Kane replied. "I recognise the trademark. There's a really fast robot, a really stealthy robot, a really strong robot, and a robot that can fly."

"Great," sighed Kirk. "Now where are my Taskers?"

"Did you call them?" Kane asked automatically, earning him a glare from his brother.

"No, they can read minds so they know exactly when to show up without being called," he replied sarcastically.

"Knowing you, that's not such a stretch," retorted Kane.

Kirk was about to deliver a comeback when a silver robot appeared between them and hit at Kane, who jumped to the side. The robot accidentally hit the wall with its fist, causing a sizeable crater to appear.

"The strong robot," said Kane, leaping back to avoid another blow. "If it hits you, it could kill you."

"That's-not-the one-I'm-most concerned about-right now!" Kirk hissed as he shot at the speedy robot, which was now literally running circles around him.

Kane backed up to avoid the strong robot but he was ambushed from behind by the flying robot. He tried to avoid both of them, but then an entirely black robot came out of nowhere and joined the circle. Kane was surrounded by the three robots. He turned every second or so, trying to keep an eye on all of the robots, but he knew that sooner or later they were going to overpower him. Sure enough, the stealth robot lunged forwards and wrenched his arm behind his back and held him tightly. Kane struggled but the strong robot and the flying robot were now coming menacingly towards him. Kane braced for pain.

All of a sudden, hundreds of animals came flooding into the room and attacked the robots, making them drop Kane, who dropped to the ground and kept low as the Taskers attacked. Kane caught sight of a female ring-tailed lemur wrenching the head off the flying robot.

Just a minute later, the battle was over. Robot parts littered the floor. Kirk gave a sharp whistle, and all the Taskers went rushing off.

Except one.

Lying on the ground, whimpering and shaking, was the female lemur that Kane had seen earlier. She had been shot in the side by one of the robots. Charlie the Cheetah was sitting beside her worriedly.

"Charlie, go back to your room," Kirk said firmly, holding his chest in pain.

The cheetah looked reluctant but evidently disobeying Kirk was something he REALLY didn't want to do; he gave the lemur one last tap with his paw, turned tail, and raced off.

Kane knelt down beside the shaking lemur and took her into his arms. "It's okay," he said gently, cradling the lemur. "She needs medical attention."

"Leslie? She's fine."

Kane looked up at Kirk, who was tapping furiously on a touchscreen tablet he was holding. "She's not fine," Kane snapped. "She's hurt."

"They deal with it themselves," Kirk replied absently.

"No," Kane snapped. "I'm not going to stand for this."

Kirk finally looked up from his tablet. "It's how I run things, Kane. If they get injured, they get punished. I don't stand for things like this."

"It's not their fault!" Kane shouted, feeling Leslie tremble in his arms. "They shouldn't be punished for something that they have no control over!"

"If they're not skilled enough to avoid injury, they need to be punished so that they will try harder in training."

Kane stared at Kirk in shock. "That's…that's BEYOND barbaric!"

"It's how I run my organisation." Kirk went back to tapping on his tablet.

"It's my organisation too," muttered Kane sullenly, before he realised that what he had just said was actually true. "It's my organisation too!" he repeated, more loudly.

"What are you on about?"

"When we signed to get this base, we both signed. We both signed up to register this organisation. You may have been running it for all these years but my name is still on all the forms. This is my organisation too."

"You can't change the regulations," snapped Kirk, turned to face Kane again. "I won't let you."

"Maybe not," retorted Kane. "But I can make sure this lemur gets the medical attention she needs."

"What are you saying?" Kirk demanded.

"I'm saying that I'm going to take her back to OWCA for treatment."

Kirk stared at Kane. "You can't do that!"

"Yes I can," Kane said firmly. "And I will. If you're going to punish animals for things they can't control, Leslie's going to be better off recovering in OWCA."

"What if she decides to stay in OWCA?" snarled Kirk.

"Then she stays in OWCA," Kane snarled back. "I'm not having you treating animals like this. And if you refuse to let me take her, then I'll refuse to help you, no matter what you do to me."

Kane and Kirk held their angry eye contact for several seconds before Kirk looked away. "Fine. Take her."

…

 **LESLIE'S GOING TO OWCA!**


	10. An Unexpected Guest

Playing with Carly, Perry and Portia were only alerted to the fact that Kane was back when he had already left again. They were told, however, that Kane had brought somebody from ARCHANGEL to be treated by Apollo.

So Perry and Portia rushed down to the hospital bay, leaving Carly with Pinky, but Perry stopped at the entrance.

"What's wrong?" Portia asked gently.

"I don't know who Kane brought from ARCHANGEL. Chances are it's not going to be someone we know. But what if it is someone we know and they hate us?"

Portia put her arms round Perry, who rested his head on her shoulder. "Most of our generation of Taskers feel that we betrayed them. We will just have to accept it if whoever's in there knows us and hates us. Okay?"

"Yeah."

Perry took a deep breath and entered the medical bay with Portia right behind him. The only bed that was occupied—apart from Georgia's—was one at the very end of the medical bay. Apollo was blocking the two platypuses from seeing whoever was on the bed. As Perry walked past Georgia on their way to the other bed, Perry saw that her hospital blanket was drawn back, clearly to make space for some kind of test or operation. Perry took a moment to tenderly tuck the hospital blanket back around Georgia before he forced himself to keep walking.

Apollo moved out of the way as they approached, allowing Perry and Portia to see who was on the bed. Portia immediately had tears in her eyes, but Perry placed his hand on the furry grey arm.

"Leslie," muttered Perry.

The ring-tailed lemur was awake, and when she saw Perry, her eyes widened. Perry quickly backed away but Portia caught Leslie's attention. "Portia…?" she croaked.

"Are you okay?" Portia asked worriedly.

"Her injury's not life-threatening," Apollo said, adjusting Leslie's pillow. "She should be up and about within a few days."

As Apollo left, Leslie turned her head and saw Georgia in the bed several metres away. Her face creased into a worried frown. "So that's where Georgia went."

"Did you see what happened to her and Oliver?" Portia asked softly.

"Not exactly what happened, no," Leslie replied, coughing briefly. "All I saw was a really beat-up Georgia running away from Kirk. I didn't know if she'd been caught, but…did she make it here?"

"She was in a critical condition, but yes," Portia replied. "She's…uh…she's in a coma, but Apollo's doing his best to help her."

"Good." Leslie lay back in her bed.

"About Oliver…is there a chance he's still alive?" ventured Perry.

Leslie closed her eyes and her face creased into an expression of sadness. "I know this isn't what you want to hear but…after Georgia left, I went into the main hall and found Oliver's body. I wasn't able to get close enough because Kirk blocked me but…he wasn't moving and he didn't look like he was breathing."

Portia turned away and Perry bowed his head. Both platypuses felt a stab of grief in their heart. Here was confirmation that Oliver was dead, and yet they wouldn't know what had actually happened until—if—Georgia recovered from her coma.

"But what about you?" Leslie asked, looking back at Portia. "Georgia and Oliver said you were still in interrogation when they left."

Portia frowned, remembering. She knew this wasn't true but she knew she had to protect her friends. "I joined OWCA," she replied carefully. "I decided it was the right thing to do."

Leslie gave a small nod. "Indeed."

"And Perry and I are mates now," added Portia. "We have a daughter together."

The lemur smiled. "Maybe…maybe I should stay."

The two platypuses stared at her. "Really?" gasped Portia.

"Without Kane, I would have died," Leslie replied. "Kirk was going to punish me for getting shot. I wouldn't have survived. Here, you get medical care for something as minor as a sprained limb. That's not what we got in ARCHANGEL. They starved me."

Leslie weakly pulled down the covers of the bed and the two platypuses saw how thin and clearly starved she was.

"Kirk said starving Taskers was a punishment," Perry stated.

Leslie gave a bitter laugh. "Punishment? He starved all of us, regardless of whether we did something wrong or not, and it certainly wasn't for lack of money."

Perry felt a stab of anger hit his chest at the thought of all those helpless animals, slowly starving to death. When he saw Kirk again, he was definitely going to smack him in the face for all the animals he had starved.

"Well, we'll leave you to rest now," Perry said, giving Leslie one more awkward pat on the arm.

As he turned away, Leslie reached out and caught his wrist. "I don't blame you for leaving. I used to hate you for abandoning us but now I see you had no choice. Just as I had no choice today."

Perry gave a small smile. "Just rest now."

Leslie smiled back and closed her eyes. Perry and Portia left the hospital bay. As they headed to collect their daughter, Portia spoke her fear aloud: "They're not going to accept her. You know that, right?"

"I know." Perry knitted his brows. "She's been part of ARCHANGEL for too long. I was for five years, you were for ten years, Leslie was for fourteen years. Very few people are going to trust her."

"But it'll be the same with Georgia when she wakes up," Portia said. "If she decides to stay too, I mean. They just have to prove that they can commit. I think that if they prove they can be loyal to us, OWCA will begin to accept them."

"I think so too," agreed Perry. "But first we have to tell Major Monogram that-."

"Perry!" yelled a voice.

Perry turned to find Apollo racing round the corner after them. Panting, the doctor stopped in front of the two platypuses.

Perry's heart immediately turned cold. "What is it?"

"It-it's Georgia…"

…

 **AAAAAAAND CLIFFHANGER! Unfortunately this one won't be resolved for a while because we're returning to Kane next chapter!**


	11. An Even More Unexpected Guest

When Kane returned to ARCHANGEL, Kirk was nowhere to be found. As he headed to the office to check there, a few Taskers came up to him and thanked him for saving Leslie. That made him feel happy inside; that Taskers weren't just isolated animals who didn't care for each other.

As he went up the stairs, he heard raised voices coming from Kirk's office. He frowned curiously and edged over to the open door. He didn't dare peer inside, but he listened and heard Kirk's voice.

"-some nerve!" he was yelling. "Get out of here right now, or I'll call my Taskers."

Then Kane heard a spine-chilling voice let out a "heh" noise. "You wouldn't tell them to attack your own brother, would you, Kirk? Oh wait. That's exactly what you're planning to do."

"Keep your voice down," hissed Kirk.

"Does Kane know?" asked Kegan's sneering voice. "Does he know your plan?"

 _What plan?_ Kane wondered quietly. _And what does it have to do with me?_

"Do you really think I'd still be here if he did?" Kirk snapped. "But don't change the subject; why the hell did you attack us long before you said you would?"

"Because you wouldn't be prepared, obviously," Kegan said, sounding confused. "I thought that was obvious."

There was a crash sound.

"Calm down, Kirk, or Kane will hear you," Kegan said. "He's standing right outside your office."

Kane just had time to envision Kirk's face going pale, before Kegan and Kirk both appeared out of the office. Kane felt his heart start to beat a little faster at the sight of his two treacherous brothers standing together, but he forced himself to fold his arms. "Interrupting, am I?"

"Not really," Kegan replied, with a cruel smile at Kirk, who flinched perceptibly. Kane felt a stab of anger towards Kegan. "I was just leaving. Kirky boy, remember what we discussed, alright?"

Kane waited for Kirk to stand up for himself, but he only stared down at the ground, his shoulders hunched. With a jolt, Kane realised that Kirk was scared of Kegan.

 _Why shouldn't he be?_ asked a voice in Kane's head. _He was terrified of Kegan for the whole of your childhood. Why would that change?_

 _Because Kirk is now an adult,_ Kane said back to his inner voice.

 _But so is Kegan._

"I look forward to seeing you again," Kegan said, smiling unpleasantly. "I hope you'll be more cooperative then, or else I may have to start getting violent." He ruffled Kirk's hair, causing him to flinch away in fear, and began to walk past Kane. However, Kane stepped into Kegan's path.

"You're not going anywhere," Kane said quietly and dangerously. "You just threatened my brother."

"Ah, now that takes me back," Kegan sneered. "Doesn't this remind you of anything, boys?"

"If you're talking about those fifteen years of fear and bullying from you, then yeah," Kane snarled.

Kegan took a step towards Kane and put his face close to Kane's own. "Get out of my way, Kane," he said, now deadly serious.

Kane kept eye contact with Kegan, almost trying to psych him out. Despite the fact that Kane was taller, he still felt like he was the one being intimidated. He narrowed his eyes, unflinching, not looking away, until Kegan finally stepped back.

"There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity, Kane," Kegan said. "I'd advise you not to cross it."

"Like you did?" scoffed Kirk, feeling a bit braver.

"Careful," Kegan warned, turning to face Kirk. "I'm part of LOVEMUFFIN now. Watch what you say or you'll have a war on your hands." He chuckled. "Of course, you already have a war on your hands."

"What are you talking about?" Kirk demanded, clenching his fists.

"When you went over there and asked for them to surrender, Rodney was so enraged that he declared war on you. Currently, he's using his various rays and devices to weaponise robots that I have provided him with."

"Robots," Kane spat. "You mean the robots that were built from the designs that you stole from me."

Kegan smirked. "Ces la vie."

Kirk, however, was also smirking. "You think I don't have a weapon of my own?"

Kegan's face fell, which delighted both Kane and Kirk.

"And I think Rodney's going to find his –inators less helpful than he thinks."

Kegan and Kane both narrowed their eyes at Kane, though Kegan was angry and Kane was suspicious. Suspicious of what Kirk was planning. Suspicious that whatever it was might include Kane.

Finally, Kegan roughly pushed past Kane, knocking him backwards into the wall, and headed for the door. Kirk whistled, summoning Charlie the Cheetah. "Make sure he leaves," he instructed the Tasker, who nodded obediently and raced off.

"What are you planning?" Kane demanded, deciding to cut straight to the chase.

Kirk just smirked. "I don't trust you THAT much, brother."

"I'M the one who doesn't have any reason to trust you, Kirk," Kane snapped. "You're the-." He bit his lip abruptly to stop himself from repeating what he had said once before.

"I'm the backstabbing brother, I know," snarled Kirk, his upper lip curling upwards, making him look like a savage dog. "You've made that perfectly clear."

"Kirk-."

"Just go away," Kirk snapped, turning away. "You know where your room is. Sleep, or something."

"Kirk-."

"Just leave me alone!" Kirk yelled, lashing out with his fist.

Kane stepped back and easily dodged the strike. It was clumsy, but the meaning behind it was clear. He nodded respectfully. "Goodnight, Kirk," he said, before heading up the corridor.

Kirk didn't say anything.

Finding his room was easy. He remembered it clearly, as if it was just yesterday that he had slept here. He opened the door, not entirely sure what he was expecting.

His eyes widened and he involuntarily gasped.

His room looked exactly the same as when he had left it. Every bit of furniture was in the same place, and even all the various accessories and decorations were untouched. It was like he had never been away. And what was more, everything was still clean.

Kane sat down on his old bed, feeling a stab of nostalgia, and lay down on top of the covers. He had spent many nights in this bed, having dreams about ARCHANGEL's potential greatness, and having nightmares about Kirk becoming a monster.

He lay there for about half an hour, simply reminiscing about his room and the old days.

Then he got up.

He had some investigating to do.


	12. Georgia's Story

Perry and Portia ran to collect Carly and raced back down to the hospital with Apollo, both of them sick with nerves. The doctor had refused to say anything more, so they were unsure if Georgia had become better, worsened, or…if the unthinkable had happened.

When they reached the medical bay, they hurried to Georgia's bedside. The golden retriever looked sickly pale and the heart monitor beside her was just as slow as it had been when Perry last visited.

"A-Apollo…?" Portia gently took Georgia's paw, leaving Carly with Perry. "What…uh…?"

"I think she's waking up," Apollo said, injecting something into Georgia.

"WHAT?" gasped Perry and Portia at the same time.

"The stimulants I've given her seem to be working. She's getting all the nutrients she needs from the injections. Her heart rate and blood pressure are improving. I think she's ready to wake up."

"I hope you're right," Portia said anxiously. "Is there any chance of her…getting worse?"

Apollo hesitated. "There IS always the chance, but I'm fairly certain it won't happen. Unless something drastically bad happens, she should recover fully."

Portia breathed out in relief. "Apollo, could you watch Carly for a minute?" she asked. "Perry and I…well…"

Apollo nodded. "Of course." He reached down and gently picked the young platypus up. "Hey, Carly. Would you like to see the operating room?"

"Okay!" Carly beamed.

As Apollo carried her away, Perry and Portia went to either side of Georgia's bed. The golden retriever's fur was looking a lot more golden and a lot less pale.

"P-Perry," Portia stammered. "I-I need to confess something."

Perry glanced across at his mate and put his paw on hers. "Are you okay, Portia? You look pale."

Portia glanced down at the floor and gently pulled her paw away from Perry's. "I-I'm scared, Perry." Before he could comment, she hurriedly continued, "I'm scared of this whole situation. If Georgia doesn't wake up, it's just more pain for us. If Georgia DOES wake up, I'm terrified of what she tells us about O-Oliver…"

Perry gazed at his mate with a sad expression. He reached further over and took hold of her paw. "Portia, I get it. Neither of us want to hear that Oliver's…gone…but we have to accept that that is what Georgia is going to tell us, okay?"

Portia closed her eyes and nodded.

A few seconds later, Perry felt a paw touch his hand, and it wasn't one of Portia's. He started in surprise and glanced down. One of Georgia's paws had moved onto his. "Portia…!" he whispered quickly.

Portia had spotted it too. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Georgia!" she gasped.

The golden retriever's eyes were fluttering. After a few tense minutes, they slowly opened and focused on the two platypuses next to her. "P-P-P-P-," she rasped, trying to speak. "'erry…"

"Shh," Portia said gently, stroking her friend's arm, as Perry ran to get Apollo. "Don't try and speak yet."

"Portia…" croaked Georgia. "Talk…Oliver…"

Portia's breath caught in her throat but she still continued to stroke the dog's fur. "Save your strength, Georgia."

Then Apollo appeared, followed by Perry, who was carrying Carly. He quickly injected something into Georgia and began checking her vitals.

"Oliver," moaned Georgia restlessly, her entire body spasming.

"Apollo, what's happening?" Perry asked fearfully, clutching Carly close to his own body.

"It's perfectly normal," Apollo replied, not entirely answering Perry's question, Portia noticed. "It'll stop soon."

Sure enough, after a couple more minutes, Georgia's body settled. Apollo stood up straight. "There. Now you can talk to her."

As he walked away, Perry and Portia went to either side of her bed. Georgia's eyes were open, and her breathing was regular. "Hi," she croaked.

Portia felt like she could breathe again for the first time in ages. It was as if she had been holding her breath since Georgia arrived, and now she was letting it out.

"Hi," Perry whispered. "G-Georgia…it's really good to see you."

Georgia managed a weak smile. "Likewise, Perry. Despite everything that happened between us four years ago…I really have missed you. And so…" She paused and sniffled. "S-so did Oliver…"

Perry felt a stab in his chest. "Georgia…we hate asking you this so soon after recovering, but…what happened to Oliver?"

Georgia exhaled shakily. "I-I'll tell you…"

…

 _Oliver's pained groaning woke Georgia up in the middle of the night. Tiptoeing over to her best friend's bed, she felt around in the dark until she located the ocelot's paw. "Oliver, are you okay?"_

 _"_ _The scar," moaned Oliver. "It-it hurts…!"_

 _Georgia hesitated, unsure of what to do. Oliver had received the scar almost four years ago to the day; a horrible and vicious scar. Kirk had inflicted it on him after they had escaped OWCA and returned to ARCHANGEL. It had pained him infrequently ever since._

 _"_ _Wh-what can I do?" she asked bravely._

 _"_ _Need…p-p-pain r-r-relief…" Oliver choked._

 _"_ _Kirk has some," Georgia said, leaping up. "Come on, Oliver. Let's go get some."_

 _"_ _He w-won't g-give me any," Oliver croaked._

 _Georgia felt tears spring to her eyes, but she forced herself to remain cheerful-ish. "We have to try. Come, Oliver. I'll help you."_

 _She helped him stand up and began to walk with him towards the door, being careful to avoid touching his right side, which was where the scar was. She hated looking at it, so she determinedly kept her eyes straight ahead._

 _They got halfway to Kirk's office when Kirk himself came up behind him. "What are you two doing out of bed?" he demanded softly. "You know what the punishment is, Georgia. Better than anyone."_

 _"_ _P-please, Kirk…!" Georgia turned halfway to face Kirk. "O-Oliver needs pain relief. Hi-his scar is…"_

 _"_ _Not my problem," Kirk said breezily._

 _"_ _But you gave it to him!" Georgia cried shrilly._

 _"_ _Because it was a punishment," Kirk replied, unfazed. "And because it was a punishment, he does not deserve pain relief."_

 _Something snapped in Georgia's mind. She glared at Kirk and snapped, "If he had received the injury in battle, you would not give him any pain relief either! You don't care about any of us! You just need us to complete your tasks, and in return, you barely feed us and give us a tiny bed. I don't call that a life!"_

 _Kirk raised an eyebrow. "Are you done?"_

 _"_ _Yes," snapped Georgia. "We're done. We're leaving."_

 _"_ _You…?" Kirk actually seemed surprised. "You're what?"_

 _"_ _You heard me," Georgia snarled. "I am taking Oliver and we are leaving here. We don't deserve this treatment, especially after everything we've poured into ARCHANGEL!"_

 _Kirk paused, before smiling dangerously. "I'm afraid nobody can leave unless I say so. And since you've essentially committed treason, that's punishable by death."_

 _Georgia's breath caught in her throat and she stepped back, but Kirk grabbed her scruff, harshly pulling her away from Oliver. She tried to struggle, but Kirk slammed her against the wall, knocking her out._

 _When she woke up, her entire body hurt. She opened her eyes and took in a deep breath, though the latter hurt her lungs and windpipe. She saw that she was in the main hall. Kirk had clearly moved her here._

 _Looking to her left, she saw Oliver. The ocelot was lying next to her, injuries all over her body. She rolled onto her stomach, with immense difficulty, and crawled over to her best friend. "Oliver…" she croaked, her vocal chords aching as she spoke._

 _"_ _You…have to…go…" rasped Oliver weakly. "R-r-run…"_

 _"_ _I'm not leaving you," Georgia whispered, tears running down her cheeks._

 _"_ _If you stay…you'll die…" Oliver reached up with a weak hand and stroked Georgia's cheek. "I…can't let that…happen. I…love you, Georgia…"_

 _Georgia gasped and her paws flew to cover her mouth. "O-Oliver…!"_

 _"_ _I've…loved you for a…long time. Years…in fact…"_

 _"_ _I-I-I…" Georgia hesitated, before saying what she knew in her heart was true. "I love you too, Oliver. You can survive this."_

 _"_ _G-go…" whispered Oliver. "Save…yourself…"_

 _Georgia began openly sobbing, then. "Oliver…no…"_

 _The sound of a door flying open made her look sharply up. Kirk was striding into the room. Georgia looked down regretfully at Oliver and kissed him on the mouth. "I love you," she whispered one more time, before reluctantly turning and fleeing._

 _As she burst out the door, her whole body hurting, she whispered, "Goodbye, Oliver. I love you."_


	13. Investigation

Kane started off by investigating the place where the Taskers slept. He wanted to make sure there were no more suffering animals in the building. Since it was night time and all the Taskers were asleep in their beds, it was a lot easier to make his rounds.

After searching through several rooms, Kane heard faint sobbing coming from one down the hall. He cautiously went over to investigate. Peering into the room, he spotted two little meerkats lying on one of the lower bunk beds, clutching each other tightly, both of them crying. Kane gently tiptoed into the room. As he approached, the two meerkats scrambled backwards in terror.

"Hey, it's okay." Kane held his hands out towards them. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm Kane."

There was silence for a moment. Then the female's voice whispered, "It's not Kirk…"

The male whispered back, "He might be just as bad."

Before Kane could explain, the female whispered, "No, he's the one who saved Leslie. Remember?"

"Oh, yes…!"

The female crept forwards cautiously, sniffing Kane's hand. "My name is Ridelle," she said, her voice sounding weak. "This is my twin brother Oz."

Oz scuttled forwards on the bed and took hold of Kane's finger, clutching it tightly. "D-do you…have food?" he asked hopefully.

Kane frowned as he glanced from Ridelle to Oz. Up close, he could see that—while meerkats were naturally thin—they were looking starved half to death. Kane might have mistaken both of them for pieces of rope, they were so thin.

Reaching into his back pocket, Kane found a slice of bread that he had saved from the dinner he had had with Kirk. He tore it in half and gave one half each to the two meerkats, who gobbled the bread down in a few seconds flat.

"Thank you," whispered Ridelle, her eyes glistening with tears. "We were so hungry…"

Kane reached out and stroked her along her head, but she flinched away when Kane reached the side of her neck. Frowning, Kane gently pulled Ridelle towards him and inspected her neck. There was a wound there, clearly quite recent; though it was not bleeding, it was clearly painful. Glancing at Oz, Kane saw that the meerkat had a large bruise over his eye, and he was holding his hind right leg awkwardly. His eyes narrowed automatically, thinking of what Kirk had done to these two poor animals.

"A-are you a-a-angry with us…?" Ridelle whispered fearfully.

Kane's eyes widened. "No, of course not! It's my brother I'm angry with. Did he do this to you?"

"I-I got injured during a battle." Ridelle glanced down at the ground. "Oz was punished for helping me."

Kane scowled. "That's it. I'm getting you two out of here."

Both meerkats blinked in surprise and hope. "Wh-what?" Oz stammered.

Kane gently picked Ridelle up and set her down on his left shoulder. He did the same to Oz, putting the male meerkat on his right shoulder. The two of them settled into comfortable positions.

"But…why…?" murmured Oz. "Why would you…?"

"I may not be able to save all the Taskers…" Kane hesitated. "But I can at least make sure you two get a better life."

Oz and Ridelle linked paws behind Kane's head, both of them almost in tears. "Th-thank you," croaked Oz eventually. "W-we can't thank you enough…"

"You two deserve so much better than this," Kane said quietly. "Just stay on my shoulders, okay?"

"Okay," chorused the two meerkats' weak voices.

Kane went out into the hall, after glancing left and right to make sure it was still clear. Then he decided to go to the storage area underneath the facility, if it was still there.

It WAS.

And it was full of robot parts.

…

 **Sorry for the shortness of the chapter; it's basically in two parts XD**


	14. Deja Vu

**Updating again! I've actually regained my motivation for this story, so YAY!**

…

"I think it's time for you to meet our daughter," Perry said gently to the golden retriever.

Georgia's eyes widened. "R-really? Y-you…trust me?"

"Of course," said Portia, who had pulled up chairs for both her and her mate. "You're still our best friend." She turned to her daughter, who was sitting on one of the beds opposite them, watching them with interest. "Carly, come here, please."

The little platypus hopped off the bed and raced over to her parents, leaping onto her mother's lap. Portia gently lifted Carly onto the bed. Carly crawled cautiously across the bed and inspected Georgia's face. After a few seconds, her paw snaked out and tapped Georgia on the nose. Georgia giggled weakly. "You're cute," she said. "What's your name?"

"I'm Carly," the little platypus announced proudly. "Who are you?"

"This is your Aunty Georgia," Portia said quickly.

Carly beamed as Georgia stared at Portia in shock. "Hello, Aunty Georgia!"

"A-Aunty…?" Georgia whispered.

"You deserve it," Perry said, smiling. "You're our best friend, Georgia. Oliver would have been uncle, had he been here."

"Uncle Oliver?" Carly looked excited. "I have an Uncle Oliver?"

"N-no, sweetie." Portia's voice cracked. "Uncle Oliver isn't here."

"Oh…" Carly hesitated.

A slightly awkward pause followed this.

"So how old are you?" Georgia asked.

"I'm three!" Carly announced.

Portia coughed. "Ahem."

" _Nearly_ three," amended Carly. "I'm two at the moment. My birthday's tomorrow, though!"

"Actually…" Portia glanced up at the clock. It was twenty past one in the morning. "Technically, it IS tomorrow."

"It's my birthday!" shrieked Carly with glee. "I'm three!"

"Yes you are," laughed Perry. "You are officially three years old."

"Not until half past six this evening, you're not," Portia chuckled. "That's the official time you hatched."

"I'm three, I'm three, I'm three!" sang Carly happily.

Perry laughed, before spotting Leslie the Lemur getting out of her bed on the other side of the room. "Excuse me," he said, hopping off his chair.

Portia nodded. "Sure." She gathered up Carly in her arms as the little platypus began chattering away to Georgia about something.

Perry headed over to Leslie, who was wincing in pain as she tried to walk. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

"Thirsty," Leslie replied honestly.

That was when Perry realised she had been heading for the water cooler by the door. "Here, let me."

He raced ahead, filled up a plastic cup with water, and gave it to Leslie, who sipped it gratefully. "Thanks. Can't wait 'til I'm able to eat real food again."

Perry smiled. "So have you decided anything?"

"Decided what?"

"If you're going to stay or not."

"Oh, I'm staying," Leslie said firmly. "As long as OWCA are okay with it, I'm staying. I am NOT going back to ARCHANGEL, not after what Kirk did to me and Georgia and Oliver and countless other Taskers."

Perry felt his heart leap. "If you're staying, then do you want a tour of OWCA?"

Leslie smiled. "That would be nice, thanks."

Perry grinned and linked arms with Leslie. They strolled out of the hospital wing.

"This is the main hall," Perry said, showing Leslie the large room. "We have parties and meetings here, but this is mostly where we eat our lunch. Hey, there might be some food in the kitchen fridge. Do you want to see?"

"Yes please."

Perry led Leslie to the kitchen and switched on the light. Then he rifled through the fridge, but there was nothing that could be made quickly.

Meanwhile, Leslie opened a random cupboard and took something out. "Can I have these?" she asked shyly.

Perry turned to find her holding a full packet of plain digestive biscuits. "Oh, I'm sure they won't mind."

Leslie smiled gratefully and tore open the packet, beginning to munch on the biscuit inside. She was still munching when Perry took her up to the office floor.

"This…this is amazing!" gasped Leslie, gazing round all the office cubicles. "I-I can't believe how amazing the conditions are here…!"

"Conditions?" repeated Perry in confusion.

"Oh, I…" Leslie hesitated. "I was just comparing the environment here to the one at ARCHANGEL."

"OWCA is a million times better than ARCHANGEL," said Perry firmly. "If you get hurt, you get medical care. If you fail a mission, you get maybe a month extra training. If you deliberately disobey an order, you get flagged. In none of those scenarios do you get beaten or starved." He paused and grinned. " _And_ you get paid."

"P-paid?!"

"And you get adopted by a lovely family who will care for you and love you," Perry added.

Leslie sighed wistfully. "That _does_ sound better than ARCHANGEL."

Perry smiled. "You know, this reminds me of a few years ago when I showed Portia around OWCA like this. I was trying to convince her to stay with me, as I am with you. And clearly…she did stay. Will you?"

Leslie hesitated for just a single second. "I will," she said. "It's not even a close decision."

Perry's smile broadened. "That's great, Leslie. I'm really glad you've decided to stay."

Leslie nodded. "I can't exactly go back even if I wanted to." She glanced up at Perry, her eyes filling with tears. "Perry, Kirk's been recruiting loads of Taskers since Portia left. He's forcing them to fight when they're not even two years old. I-I saw a ten-month-old possum get ripped apart by a r-robot…"

Perry felt his heart drop. "He's not even waiting until they're two years old?"

Leslie shook her head slowly. "W-we need to help them, Perry. W-we can't leave them to suffer under Kirk's tyranny."

"We won't," promised Perry. "We'll help as many of them as we can, okay?"

Leslie sniffled and nodded. "I-I hope so. I really don't want those innocent animals to end up living weapons like us older Taskers. It's too late for many of us, but…I don't want it to be for them."

Perry's mind began to think, as he pulled Leslie in for a hug. It WAS too late for many of the older Taskers, but Georgia and Leslie had realised how bad ARCHANGEL was.

Could others?


	15. How To Avoid Destiny

Kane stared round the room in shock. Metal machine parts were scattered all over the hard floor, from clear parts like stands or dishes to circuit boards and integration chips. On the other side of the room, there were several wooden stands with what was clearly sheets of blueprints on them. Kane edged cautiously over to them. His heart froze at what he saw.

Designs for LOVEMUFFIN rays. Blueprints for all the LOVEMUFFIN rays that OWCA had destroyed during the last few months, including the most recent one that Perry's team had destroyed AND a few that he had never even seen before.

"Kirk has some serious explaining to do," growled Kane.

"I see you're amassing your own zoo, brother," came Kirk's voice from the doorway, causing Kane to spin round. His brother was standing there with his arms folded and a smirk on his face. "Not content with stealing my lemur, now you have my two ferrets too."

"They're meerkats," snarled Kane. "And you're not going to hurt them anymore."

Kirk raised an eyebrow. "I don't really care, to be frank. I want to know what you're doing down here."

"Investigating," snapped Kane. "What is this for? All the ray parts and ray blueprints? And they're all LOVEMUFFIN's! What have you been up to?"

"Well, basically, I've been letting your silly organisation trash those rays, then slipping in after you and gathering up the blueprints and pieces left behind."

Kane blinked. _Well, that was easy._ "Why did you just tell me that?"

Kirk snorted. "You asked."

"I didn't think you'd answer just like that!" Kane glared at his brother. "What are you planning?"

"THAT won't be as easy, I'm afraid," Kirk said regretfully.

"Why do you need the LOVEMUFFIN ray parts?" Kane glanced around the room. There were hundreds of parts, but not nearly as many as there should have been, considering the amount of rays that had been wrecked. "And where are all the other parts?"

"Stored in a project of mine," Kirk replied. "A special ray."

"Show me," ordered Kane.

"Only if you relinquish my Taskers," Kirk said, pointing to Oz and Ridelle, who both cowered.

Kane glared. "Not going to happen."

"Then I will not show you my special ray."

"Let us go," Ridelle whimpered. "You need to complete your mission. Forget about us; we will be fine. We-we have survived on our own thus far."

"Not going to happen," Kane repeated, reaching up to stroke both meerkats. "I'm taking you back to OWCA for medical attention." As Kirk opened his mouth to argue, Kane snapped, "Remember this is my organisation too."

Kirk shut his mouth and glowered. "How many of my Taskers are you going to abduct?"

"I'm sorry; I think you mispronounced a word, there. You said "abduct", but it's actually pronounced "rescue"."

Kirk rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'll show you the special ray if you promise these two will be the last two that you…" He stopped and made air quotes. "…rescue."

Kane hesitated for only a second. "Deal," he said.

He heard one of the meerkats whimper behind him.

"Fine. Follow me."

Kirk began walking towards an almost invisible door in the side of the room. Kane frowned; he had never seen this before. He cautiously followed Kirk through the door.

Kane's heart skipped a beat. He was in the exact same room as in his dream, complete with a ray in the corner. It had the exact same parts as in his dream, from the hourglass body shape to the satellite dish barrel. He couldn't help staring at it in astonishment.

"Kirk…THIS is your special ray?" Kane gasped. "This is what all the parts have been for?"

"Yep," Kirk said, sounding pleased with himself.

Kane cursed himself internally. _Stop following the script! Go off-book and maybe you'll survive!_

But something WAS different. In his dream, he had not had anyone with him. Right now, he had Ridelle and Oz perched on his shoulders; they were also staring up at the ray.

Unlike in his dream, Kane was not confused by why the ARCHANGEL leader had LOVEMUFFIN parts in his ray. Kirk had explained that mystery.

Kane internally cursed again. He didn't want to ask this question—since he had asked it in his dream—but he had to. "What does it do?" he asked nervously, anticipating Kirk's answer.

"I can't tell you that."

Kane forced himself to keep looking at the ray, even though he knew Kirk was currently advancing on him with a dagger. "Why? You're breaking our deal."

"Because, brother, it is as you said."

Before anything else could happen, Ridelle let out a piercing scream and leapt off Kane's shoulder, closely followed by Oz. Kane whirled round and firstly got a fright at how close Kirk was to him with the dagger. But then he saw that the two meerkats had leapt onto Kirk's face, causing him to drop the knife, which Kane scooped up. As Kirk flung the two meerkats off him, Kane kicked him in the chest to send him down, and held the knife towards him.

"You are the backstabbing brother," Kane snarled. "It IS as I said. You were going to kill me, brother."

Kirk neither confirmed nor denied it. He simply glared up at Kane.

"But you failed," Kane continued. "And now you're going to tell me what that ray does."

A small smirk appeared on Kirk's face. "No, no I'm not. Do you know why?"

Kane shrugged loosely, indicating that he neither knew nor cared.

"Because this."

Kirk kicked both Kane's legs at the same time, causing him to topple forwards and hit the ground heavily on his chest, possibly cracking a few ribs. The dagger flew out of his hand and Kirk picked it up. Before Kane could move, Kirk slammed the hilt of it into the back of his head, dazing him. A further hit completely knocked him out.

Kirk stood over his brother, hesitating. Despite his willingness to kill Kane earlier, that had been when his brother hadn't seen it coming. Now that he was facing Kirk—essentially—he knew he couldn't do it.

Besides, Kirk now knew that he wanted his brother to see him succeed. He couldn't let Kane die before he had seen Kirk crush LOVEMUFFIN. He picked Kane up under the shoulders and began dragging him away.

Unbeknownst to Kirk, the two meerkats scuttled out the door before he could get there.

Ridelle and Oz knew they had to warn someone, and they knew exactly who.


	16. Stuck In The Middle

Perry took Leslie back to the hospital and then went outside for some fresh air. He was worried about Kane; the platypus had tried reaching him on the communicator, but there was no answer. Anything could have happened to him…

"Perry!" called a female voice from behind him.

Perry turned and caught sight of a familiar human woman coming towards him. She was wearing a baggy jumper over leggings, and her long brown hair was matted. Her eyes were red and it looked like she hadn't slept very well.

Perry opened his beak to say hello to her, but she interrupted: "Where's Kane? Have you had contact with him recently?"

"No, Mavis, I haven't," Perry sighed. "Not for a day, at least."

Mavis bit her lip and massaged her stomach. "I'm worrying myself sick over him; I actually threw up this morning. What do you know about the situation?"

"Next to nothing," Perry replied. "Apart from the fact that L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. is about to launch a massive attack on Archangel."

"Oh no…" Mavis hesitated. "What are we going to do about it?"

Perry sighed. "I don't know. Right now, I think you should see your dad."

Mavis nodded, exhaling deeply. "You're right. Is he in his office?"

"Yeah. If any of my friends are in there, could you ask them to come to my office?"

Mavis nodded again. "Sure."

She walked off, but as Perry went to follow, he heard a small yell. Perry whirled round and spotted two meerkats racing across the lawn towards him. He ran to meet them, spotting that they both looked exhausted and injured.

"W-We need help," panted the male. "I-I'm Oz, and this is m-my twin s-sister Ridelle."

"We came from Archangel," Ridelle added.

Perry stared at them. "You did?!"

"K-Kane's in trouble," croaked Ridelle. "Kirk tried to kill him but he failed. They fought."

"Then Kirk knocked Kane out," Oz finished. "W-We need to help him. He helped us escape from Archangel."

"You two are hurt," observed Perry. "Let me take you to our doctor."

He reached towards Oz, but the meerkat pulled away. "Save Kane," he begged. "Please."

"I will," promised Perry. "He's one of my best friends. I'm not going to do nothing, I promise. I will save him."

Ridelle and Oz both smiled weakly. "Thank you," whispered Ridelle.

"Of course. Now let's get you two some medical care."

…

When Perry got back to his office, he found Portia and Carly. "There you are," Portia said, frowning. "You've been away for a while."

"I need you to go and round up Pinky, Tallulah, Terry, and Pansy," Perry told her. "Quickly."

"What about Carly?"

"She can stay here with me. Please, Portia."

Portia nodded and set Carly down on the floor. Then she hurried out of the office.

"Hi Daddy," beamed Carly.

Perry also beamed and scooped up his daughter, holding her against his hip. "Hey, sweetheart. You okay?"

"I did a cartwheel earlier," Carly said proudly. "But I crashed into the bin."

Perry glanced down at his waste-paper basket, which seemed to have a dent in it. He chuckled. "I can see that."

Then the turtle twins appeared in the office. Tallulah smiled. "Portia said to come here. Did you need to talk to us?"

"I need Pinky and Pansy too, though," Perry said. "But yeah."

"What about?" Terry asked.

Perry shook his head, and didn't speak again until Portia returned with Pinky and Pansy.

"What's this all about, Per?" Pinky asked.

Perry sat down on his desk, balancing Carly on his lap. He looked around at his friends. "Two Archangel agents escaped from Kirk today," he informed them. "They told me that Kane has been attacked by Kirk and is being held prisoner."

His friends simultaneously gasped.

"But why would he do that?" Tallulah asked.

"Don't you see?" Perry addressed his friends. "Everything that's happened: Kirk and Kane against Kegan's robots, Rodney's various rays. It's all been a sign of things to come. A battle between Archangel and L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. is going to begin very shortly and O.W.C.A. is well and truly stuck in the middle of it. If we don't do something, we risk getting crushed."

"But what CAN we do?" Portia asked, linking arms with him.

"We need to fight," sighed Perry. "We need to be a referee, so to speak. We need to make sure that neither organisation destroys the other."

"But why not let them destroy each other?" inquired Terry.

"First of all, I don't want to risk the safety of Kane or the other innocent Taskers," Perry replied. "Secondly, it would be unethical."

"I agree," Pansy spoke up. "We have to make sure that if they do have to fight, they don't do too much damage."

"And we have to get Kane back," inputted Pinky. "He's really important to everyone here."

"I agree," Perry echoed. "Does everyone else agree?"

Everyone nodded and made noises of agreement.

"We're with you, Perry," Pansy said, standing up straight.

Perry smiled. "Good. Let's go."


	17. The Battle Begins

When the O.W.C.A. animals got onto the top of the hill overlooking the two organisations' buildings, they were shocked by what they saw.

It was mayhem.

There were robots everywhere, mixed in with dozens of Archangel agents and a few white-clad L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. scientists.

"Oh my God!" Portia breathed.

Perry was horrified by the scene. He had never seen such a large battle before. And what was worse was that, even from this distance, he could see many of his friends fighting down there, including Carlos the Jaguar.

"We have to help Archangel," gasped Portia. "Right, Perry?"

Perry wanted to refuse. He didn't want to help Kirk Kennedy, who had destroyed so many lives and almost ruined many more. He didn't want to help the man who killed Oliver and scarred Georgia. He didn't want to help the man who starved all those animals. But he knew he had to help. Not for Kirk, for the sake of those animals. The Taskers who were going to needlessly die or get hurt. He needed to help so that nobody ended up like Oliver.

"Right," Perry said.

He turned to his friends: Portia, Pansy, Terry, Tallulah, and Pinky. "Okay. Pinky, you're the fastest. I need you to run back to O.W.C.A. and gather all the agents. We're going to need a lot of help. Terry and Tallulah, you two spread out and see if you can find Kirk or Kane. Portia, Pansy, and I will join the fight."

Pansy pulled out her electric batons, while Portia brought out the hammer she had taken from the armoury. Perry generated a proton ring. "Ready?"

His friends all nodded.

Perry inhaled deeply. _We're coming, Kane._

"Then go!"

The three platypuses and two turtles charged down the hill like snowballs. The two species split up when they got down there; Terry and Tallulah headed straight towards L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.'s base and the three platypuses began mingling with the fight.

Perry remembered seeing Carlos struggling against a robot three times his size, so he decided to try and find the jaguar. However, on his way there, he was ambushed by a strength robot that managed to pin him down. But before it could hit him, a small pink rabbit came flying out of nowhere and latched onto the robot's face. The robot tried to punch her, but she jumped out of the way at the last second. So, of course, the robot punched itself in the face, causing it to stop working. The rabbit helped Perry free himself, then stood there staring at him.

"You're Perry the Platypus," she said, almost accusingly.

Perry nodded, massaging his sore collarbone. "That's right. And you are…?"

She didn't look particularly happy about giving her name away, but she eventually said, "Lois."

Perry didn't recognise her; she was probably a new recruit. In that case, she was probably at least four years younger than him.

"Have you seen Kirk anywhere?" Lois asked. "I'm worried about him."

"Worried? About Kirk?" Perry's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

"His older brother is here," Lois explained. "I'm worried that he's going to try and hurt Kirk."

Perry felt anger surge through his veins. "Kirk's the one holding Kane hostage!"

"I don't mean Kane. I mean his oldest brother Kegan."

Perry froze. He had forgotten that Kegan would be here. Cursing under his breath, he spun round, trying to catch sight of any of the three Kennedys.

"If you're gonna go find him, take me with you," Lois said fiercely.

"I'm going to find Kegan," Perry told her. "He's the one who stole the designs for Kane's robots. He's dangerous."

"Take me with you," Lois ordered him.

Perry really didn't care whether he was alone or not. "Fine. Come on."

Fighting his way through the throng, Perry realised that Archangel seemed to be losing. Everywhere he looked, he saw either dead or injured Taskers. Luckily, Terry and Tallulah had taken it upon themselves to rescue any injured that they could find.

He heard Lois let out a strangled cry. "M-Mom…!"

Perry turned to find that Lois had stopped and was staring at the feebly twitching body of a clearly older pink rabbit, lying in a small pool of blood. "Mom!" Lois cried again, starting towards the other rabbit.

Perry grabbed her wrist and let out a shrill whistle. A few seconds later, Terry appeared, picked up the hurt pink rabbit, and carried her away. Lois swallowed shakily. "I-I-I've never s-seen her like that b-before."

"Focus, okay?" Perry told her, looking her in the eyes. "She's safe now. She'll get the best of care at O.W.C.A., I promise."

Lois slowly nodded, meeting Perry's eyes. "O-Okay."

With that, they resumed running. Perry couldn't help feeling sorry for Lois; she was still very young and had just watched her mother almost die. Yet she was still charging straight into battle with a platypus she had just met.

Maybe he could persuade her to join O.W.C.A. if she was given the chance to see how much better than Archangel it was.

"There!" Lois suddenly yelled, pointing ahead of them.

Sure enough, Perry could see the oldest Kennedy brother standing atop one of the strength robots, looking just as evil as ever. His eyes seemed to be fixated on Archangel HQ.

"Get him!" Lois yelled angrily.

"No, wait!" Perry yelled in alarm.

But Lois had already jumped, with all the strength of a rabbit, up to the robot and was now climbing up its arm. Perry growled. _She's going to get herself killed._

He leapt onto the robot's waist and followed Lois, who had now reached the head. She launched an attack on Kegan, but even Perry could see that she had drastically underestimated him. After one single kick, Kegan reacted and grabbed her foot, holding her upside down. He laughed. "Nice try, rabbit."

"Let me go!" Lois screeched, trying to kick him.

"Let her go!" Perry yelled from the robot's shoulder. He wasn't as good a climber as the rabbit and wasn't currently able to get up onto the head.

Kegan looked down, raised a contemptuous eyebrow, and kicked Perry in the face, causing the platypus to lose his grip and tumble to the ground. He didn't break or fracture any bones when he landed, luckily. He looked back up just in time to see Kegan draw back his arm and throw Lois as if she was just a throwing axe. Perry heard her screaming as she flew through the air.

"LOIS!" Perry yelled.

He took off running after her, praying she would be okay.


End file.
